June 23, 2013

Apple's iPad mini is a hot product that launched with a new tri-fold Smart Cover design back in Q4 2012. On Friday, the Hong Kong IP Office officially granted Apple four distinct design patents covering the iPad mini Smart Cover. On another front, Huawei is saying that Apple is slipping in the market in the hopes of shaking things up and capturing the number three spot away from LG. The thing about Huawei is that they've taken a page right out of Apple's playbook which makes this copycat one to keep an eye on going forward.

Apple has been granted four design patents for the iPad mini's Smart Cover design and one of the Registered Design forms in-part are noted below along with one of the design figures presented in their filings.

Huawei Follows Apple's Design Philosophy

Another iPhone competitor by the name of Huawei has taken a shot at Apple recently by saying that "Apple is now slipping." But that's mild compared to their cracks at Samsung by stating that their S4 smartphone is made of cheap plastic and have "built their success on hyperbole and enormous advertising spending."

The new Huawei P6 smartphone actually offers a very nice design form factor with decent specs including a 4.7" display along with a nice choice of 100 homepage design templates (Click Emotion UI, click Hundreds of themes) to choose from. Not bad for an Android smartphone.

Yet at the end of the day, Huawei goes out of their way to copy Apple's style of paying attention to design detail and more importantly, trying to copy Apple's approach to design right down to a "Jony Ive" type of presentation (Click "How elegance is made possible" bottom center video) to stress their passion for design detail.

In other segments they introduce their audience to some British designers on their team to give their video a suave Jony Ive-like air. It's nice to see Apple's influence in business in so many ways involving presentation. None have matched Apple's class but it's flattering to see that Apple has raised the marketing bar so high that others want to mimic it.

Lee Iacoca once said, "Lead, Follow or get out of the way," and we see today that Huawei is one that has decided to follow Apple's classy style while trying to find their uniqueness in the Android world.

As for Apple slipping; Well, Huawei's phone was built after the iPhone 5. So let's see what Apple delivers in September before we take that statement too seriously. Apple leads, while others follow. In so many ways, that has yet to change.

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